There is a science joke, which has been polished over time:
* A specialist knows more and more about less and less until eventually he knows everything about nothing.
* A generalist knows less and less about more and more until eventually he knows nothing about everything.

I consider myself a generalist thus I declared that I know nothing about everything.

Friday, March 28, 2008

These last days I experienced a truly ironic event.. I'll probably post about it one day.

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Anyway, today an asshole parked in front of my employees' pool car. She (I believe a she based on items inside the car) positioned it in such a way that the pool car can't get out. What pissed me was that she pulled her parking brake thus the car can't be pushed from outside. My employees must wait for her car key to move her car from inside. The problem was, they didn't know where she was and she didn't bother to tell parking attendants her whereabouts.

My employees were getting restless waiting for her. They began kicking her car's tire and knocked the car to light up it's alarm, so that she can hear it and come to the car. Unfortunately, the car didn't seem to have any alarm.

The night was coming. They are getting more restless while still no sign of her at all. They really can't wait no longer. Then, you know what? Together they lifted her car and moved it. It was quite a show :-).

But her car position relative to wall made movement quite limited. To have the pool car get out, they have no choice but to lift the pool car instead and move it. But the pool car was more difficult to lift because the suspension seems quite long. The long suspension made moving the car difficult, because they must lift it higher to make the tires not touching the ground thus able to move it. Moving it while the tire still touch the ground was more difficult due to tire friction with ground.

So what's the solution?

They accidentally figured the solution. They realized that when engine moved tires while lifting the car, friction was decreased even when tires still touched ground. They did exactly that and finally able to orient the pool car and get out. They went home happily but not before I asked them to wrote a memo saying "Don't park your car without consideration" ("Jangan parkir sembarangan" in local language) and put it on her windshield. I'm tempted to add the word asshole, but in the end I didn't.

What lesson did I learn today?1. The back of the car is easier to lift then the front, probably has something to do with the relatively short length of back tires suspension. (And here I used to thought the front tire suspension is shorter).2. To easily move the back of a car: Put sand below the back tire -> lift car a bit -> press gas to move tire -> move the back of car.

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Update: The criminal was the guest of next door's establishment. At that time, they swore they already checked and assured me the criminal couldn't be any of their guests. This incident really put a dent to an already strained relationship between our employers. I'm quite tired dousing my employers with cool calm words..

It's a lot more peaceful to work for somebody else instead of having your own business.

Update2: It's funny how things work out. Although a few hours ago I have an interesting thing to blog about, later development today shows that it's for my best interest to not blog. But this later development actually help me in restraining my employees to not do anything bad to next door's establishment within foreseeable future.